An investigation into the amount of cheating inEscape From Tarkovclaims that 60% of matches, if not more, feature cheaters. At this point, almost allEscape From Tarkovplayers have had an experience with a cheater in-game. It may have been an obvious cheater, flying through the air or invincible to attacks, or it may have only been a suspicion. OneEscape From Tarkov fan had enough and decided to investigate just how widespread cheating really is.
Before discussing the results of the investigation, it should be made clear thatEscape From Tarkovdoes have multiple methods of addressing cheating.Developer Battlestate Gamesclaims it bans thousands of cheaters a day. Further, even if players encounter cheaters inEscape From Tarkov, that does not mean the system isn’t tracking them. Punishment doesn’t typically occur at the moment cheating is recognized, in order to make it less obvious how they’re being detected.
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YouTuber g0at is theEscape from Tarkovplayer that decided to evaluate the problem on his own. Obviously, g0at is not anEscape From Tarkovdeveloper and has no administrative access to tools that could help him hunt down cheaters. Instead, he chose to use cheat tools himself that showed opponent locations through walls to try and hunt down other cheaters. This may seem contradictory, but it proved astonishingly successful using what g0at called “The Wiggle.” He’d approach suspected cheaters, wiggle his character, and cheaters very frequently would wiggle back.
Using the wiggle method and general observation, g0at says that across 125Escape From Tarkovonline raids, he encountered “obvious” cheaters in around 60% of them. When he says “obvious,” he’s not saying cheaters that a typical player would recognize immediately, though. He says he never encountered speed hackers, “stanky leg” invincible hackers, no flying hackers, and aimbots/rage-hacks were very rare. In other words, almost all the hackers g0at encountered used simpler hacks to see players through walls and were only recognizable through communicating via wiggling or general observation with hacks enabled.
That 60% of over 125 matches isn’t even what’s most shocking about g0at’s findings, as surprising as it may be. It’s that g0at’s method of finding hackers was by no means perfect. He could have missedEscape From Tarkovhackersin all of his games. 60% is just what g0at “confirmed,” but the true number could be significantly higher.
Escape From Tarkov’s developer issued a statement following the release of g0at’s video. Battlestate Games' COO Nikita Buyanov reiterated that the studio is banning cheaters daily, working with its partners atBattlEye Anti-Cheatto improve its capabilities, working on internal anti-cheat systems, and other efforts. Still, it’s going to be difficult to rebuild trust following this video and the general frustration with cheating in the game.
